At 10:22 AM 4/29/2003, John Stracke wrote:
Arien Vijn wrote:
On 26-04-2003 19:35PM, "Keith Moore" <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> wrote:
What is wrong with having addresses available for private use on
networks that do not intend on being connected to the Internet?
in principle, nothing. but experience has shown that most of those networks
do end up being connected to the Internet, while still keeping those
addreses,
and that applications are expected to cope with that.
Ehm... What experience? You are referring to experiences with RFC1918
addresses in the IPv4-world, aren't you?
I think Keith is most likely referring to the experience from before
RFC1597, when isolated networks would use random addresses, and then run
into trouble when they wanted to connect. Even if the networks were
NATted, the users would suffer because they would never be able to
communicate with the legitimate holders of the addresses.
Indeed. Many folks used Sun's address block, since Sun used their own IP
address space in their documenation for examples. Even worse than randomly
selecting, this meant many people collided both in the ways we all know
about when two RFC1918-numbered networks merge and in terms of conflicts if
trying to connect to the public network.
Many NANOG folks are busy screaming that everyone who's got pre-RIR address
space that's not publicly routed should be giving it up and using RFC 1918.
Many IETF folks are similarly trying to eradicate the use of any non-public
IP address space. Clearly we have a major disconnect between the IETF and
the operations communities. And while the response to this posting will be
"IPv6 space is limitless," I would argue that ignores the past, and the
possibility of a repeat in the future.